Changing Tunes

Who we are

Changing Tunes is a charity that uses music and mentoring to help people lead meaningful lives, free from crime.  We work with men, women and young people of all abilities and backgrounds. Our goal is to restore their confidence and enable them to break the cycle through creativity in music.

Currently we work in 21 settings, including 18 prisons, across the UK. We helped over 800 prisoners and over 50 ex-prisoners in 2025.  Music has the power to unlock people's potential to change. It improves wellbeing and enables personal growth, which both aid rehabilitation

Our Musicians-in-Residence are multi-instrumentalists and compassionate role models. They deliver group music sessions in prison and youth centres as well as sessions in the community. We also have a record label, Red Tangent Records, run by and for prisoner leavers. Last year alone we ran 160 recording sessions for our participants. 

In each session, 5 to 10 people learn and create different styles of music together. We create a safe place for people to express themselves and learn to collaborate with others. Over time, the group bonds and works toward goals such as recordings and performances.

We support people for as long as they need us in prison and upon release.  We achieve five main outcomes, proven to be essential to reducing reoffending. Our work increases; hope, self-esteem, resilience, belonging, and positive identity.

Ex-prisoners we have worked with over the past 10 years have a reoffending rate of less than 5%.  In 2025, participants in our sessions won 39 Koestler Awards for their music.

Our culture and values

Using Music to unlock human potential and reduce reoffending

About Changing Tunes

Changing Tunes is a registered charity (no. 1144789) that uses music to unlock human potential and reduce reoffending, working in prisons, youth centres and post-release in the community. We started in 1987 when our founder Richard Pendlebury took his guitar into HMP Bristol. He was inspired by his Christian values, wanting to reach out to those who have lost their way.

We now work in prisons across the Midlands, the South of England and Wales, offering a model of music and mentoring, which we continue to provide post-release. This work is delivered on a part-time basis throughout the year by our regular musicians and by volunteers across the organisation. The effectiveness of our approach is evidenced in our reoffending rates, which are 52% below the national average.

Whilst Changing Tunes is registered as a non-religious charity, we still have very strong links to our history and we continue to be underpinned by Christian values, as seen in our Values statement below.

Changing Tunes Vision

·         Our vision is for prisoners and ex-prisoners to live a crime-free life of meaning and purpose.

Changing Tunes Mission Statement

●        To accomplish this, we provide transformative music and mentoring sessions for men, women and young people in the UK prison system and post-release, enabling them to lead positive and meaningful lives by unlocking their potential to change, thus breaking the cycle of reoffending.

Values Statement

The values of Changing Tunes underpin the whole purpose of the service it delivers and the method of delivering it:

●        Valuing people, demonstrated both in the long-term commitment to the people we work with and in the collaborative approach taken by musicians;

●        Hope and motivation through the non-judgmental, warm and positive attitude of the musicians to conceive of a future where challenges can be overcome and spiritual, social and emotional well-being experienced

●        Inclusionand access for all without discrimination regardless of who they are, what their stage of life is or what they believe

●        Trust developed through respectful relationships characterised by honesty and respect;

●        Enjoyment and fulfilment through positive endeavour and achievement both in community and individually.

These values are embodied in the delivery and support team of Changing Tunes, creating a safe and socially therapeutic environment, thus making a noticeable difference to the process of positive change in participants.

Valuing people is the ‘foundation’ value of Changing Tunes, demonstrated in the long-term commitment to the people we work with. We appreciate that change takes time and that people’s lives are complicated. We aim to be inclusive and build trusting relationships characterized by honesty and mutual respect. As people we work with are given opportunities to take risks, learn from mistakes and build on successes, they can find hope and ambition, both for personal change and growth in skills.

Hope involves the will to reach a positive destination: without hope, nothing is possible. We aim to bring hope back into the lives of the prisoners and ex-prisoners we work with, many of whom have low self-esteem and little sense of worth. Hope is the precursor to ambition, and to having faith in one’s own potential and life chances. Hope allows our beneficiaries to take risks with our support, and having personal ambition gives prisoners and ex-prisoners the emotional capacity to overcome their challenges and reach a place of peace and acceptance. To grow ambition and hope, we must also create a learning culture in which there is a commitment to excellence.

Inclusion for all, and access to all, means to refrain from judgement and see the positive potential in everyone we work with. Our work cultivates an atmosphere of inclusion and collaboration, whilst being needs-led and people-centred, so that every prisoner and ex-prisoner is inspired to carve out their own positive path in life.

Trust is cultivated by setting boundaries within which people have certain freedoms (to make decisions, to take risks, to speak their minds) as well as certain obligations (to speak the truth, to be accountable for their decisions, to learn from their mistakes). People can't be productive when they are driven by rules, nor can anything be achieved when there are no boundaries and chaos reigns. Trust can only thrive in an organisation in which there is mutual respect and where people are valued.

Enjoyment is keyas people perform at peak levels when they are motivated by both what they do and the company of the people they do it with. Enjoyment doesn’t mean frivolity or the absence of challenging work. Real enjoyment and fulfilment at work comes when you and your team are deeply immersed in tackling a problem, and you persevere together.

Christian values have underpinned, inspired and informed the organisation and its approach from its inception, with prison chaplaincy and Christian churches frequently providing support, venues and contexts for the work of Changing Tunes. The attitude of Christ, who sees value in every individual no matter how they are regarded by the rest of the world, underpins the attitude of Changing Tunes towards every individual whom they have the privilege to serve in prison and post-release. Some of our staff are Christians and some are not, but all of them embrace our values.  Our sessions are open to anyone regardless of what they believe. If we are asked about our beliefs we will share them but we do not expect participants to do the same.